Council pushes forward in search for synthetic marijuana ban

The Lubbock City Council began a discussion on the sale of synthetic marijuana.

Klein

Lubbock is joining other South Plains cities unwilling to wait for state legislators to raise the heat on synthetic marijuana dealers.

Lubbock’s City Council on Monday committed support to a potential ban or limits on the sale of synthetic psychoactive designer drugs, including synthetic marijuana and plan to weed them out for a vote by early January — a move being echoed by city leaders in such South Plains cities as Brownfield, Crosbyton and Littlefield.

City Attorney Sam Medina said he would have drafts of the potential ordinances criminalizing some products prepared for the council’s Jan. 10 meeting.

“If this was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved years ago by the federal government or the state government,” he said.

Councilwoman Karen Gibson suggested the council form a three-council-member ad-hoc committee to look at possibilities for an ordinance in the coming weeks.

“We’ll be getting together with the attorneys to create an ordinance, a first step if you will, to get that passed so we can at least, basically, stop the bleeding before we proceed on and get some more heavy-duty ordinances passed,” Gibson said.

The council also approved an initial version of the city’s 2013 state legislative agenda, which includes city support of statewide legislation broadening existing laws banning a handful of synthetic marijuana products.

Both Gibson and Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson said they’re not willing to wait and see if the Texas Legislature toughens state synthetic marijuana laws — which banned products containing the synthetic cannabinoids K2 and Spice in 2011 — during its spring session, which begins Jan. 8.

Last week, Littlefield’s City Council tasked Littlefield’s city attorney with exploring options for an ordinance banning synthetic marijuana, said Littlefield City Manager Mike Arismendez.

“I feel that we need to do all we can to try to keep children from getting their hands on the substances,” Arismendez said.

Littlefield Police Chief Abel Cantu told the council he’s seen an increase in recent years of young people in the city having bad reactions to such products.

“Sometimes they’re having convulsions,” Cantu said.

Littlefield’s council is set to consider an ordinance at its Jan. 31 meeting.

Crosbyton Police Chief Greg Parrott called Lubbock’s look at the issue good timing, as Crosbyton city leaders also are in an early stage of considering a ban on substances he fears could harm children and others in his community.

“Our primary concern has been in the accessibility of these substances and that there are some obvious loopholes in current legislation regulating them,” he told the Avalanche-Journal earlier this month.

Parrott credited state legislators for passing Senate Bill 331 and House Bill 2118 in 2011, which make it a crime to possess or sell certain, specific synthetic compounds such as K-2 and “Spice.”

But, he said manufacturers have been able to work around the legislation by changing chemical compounds or selling some products as incense or potpourri.

Parrott said his community became concerned in recent months when legal synthetic marijuana and similar substances started showing up in the high school.

He said investigators suspect synthetic marijuana may have played a role in a recent violent incident involving youths.

He declined to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation, but said an involved party in the incident showed such symptoms as paranoia, loss of memory, inability to speak and anger, though investigators have not confirmed if synthetic marijuana or another substance was involved.

“But it was all of the same symptoms you see in using those substances,” he said. “It was unlike any other drug or intoxicant that we have ever seen.”

Brownfield Police Chief Tony Serbantez said his community took a proactive approach to regulating synthetic drugs in 2010 when Brownfield’s city council enacted an ordinance criminalizing the possession or sale of synthetic marijuana. A violation of the ordinance is a misdemeanor and carries a fine up to $2,000, according to a copy of the ordinance.

Serbantez said city leaders were concerned such synthetic compounds were being sold to adults but being distributed to minors and had the potential to pose health dangers to people of all ages.

Gibson has led the Lubbock council’s charge against the ever-growing list of alternatives to K2 and Spice, requesting the city’s legal staff research how, and to what extent, the city can ban the sale of synthetic marijuana.

Gibson said she favors an outright ban on the sale of synthetic marijuana and other designer drugs in the city, though she suspects such a ban could encourage the sale of such substances outside the city without a similar state law.

Robertson said he’s not pushing for a full ban, but rather for criminal and civil penalties for the sale of the substances to minors, while other council members fall somewhere between Robertson’s and Gibson’s stances.

Head shop owners and salespeople told the Avalanche-Journal this week they do not sell such products to children, explaining they ask for customers’ IDs before sales. The packages of the substances, ranging from $1.99 business-card-size-envelopes to 10-plus gram bags for $30 or more, are available in more than 20 Lubbock head shops and tobacco stores.

But anti-synthetic marijuana advocates shared anecdotes with the council in November, warning the substances, with their colorful labels often featuring cartoon characters, target and reach children.

Gina Johnson urged the council on Monday to take action soon.

“Please do not allow one more person to suffer from these poisons,” she said.

The council previously heard an earful from anti-synthetic marijuana advocates on Nov. 29 and voted unanimously on Dec. 6 to have the Lubbock Board of Health study the drugs’ impact and educate the public on the health effects of such products.